Leo and Leila

Leila Shah was mortified the minute those words came out of her mouth. It’s like everything came crashing down around her in slow motion. This is precisely why she needed to get a publicist. “Uh...” she chuckled nervously. “...sike?” Oh god, she was digging herself into a bigger hole.

The interviewers from Axis Entertainment looked like a cat who had caught the canary. “So you wrote fanfiction about Eli and Diego from 24 Hours?” The host, Nathan, asked.

Leila closed her eyes briefly and let out a silent, exasperated puff of breath. “Yeah, I did.” Better to admit it than deny something, she thought to herself. “I mean, Eli is one of the hottest guys around,” she added with a shrug and instantly regretted it when she heard an “Oh no” from her friend/manager backstage. Leila bit her tongue and closed her eyes, feeling her cheeks heat up.

A pair of amused laughs erupted from the two hosts.

“You’re gonna edit that out, right?” Leila asked in a hopeful voice.

“I would say yes but that would be a lie,” Jasmine, the other host, replied.

“So if you find Eli hot, then does that mean you find Leo hot too?” Nathan continued to ask, looking down to hide his obvious smirk.

“No, because I can dissociate the character from the actor,” Leila replied a little too defensively. “Can we talk about the documentary? I mean, I would think talking about missing immigrant women would be more important than whether or not I wrote fanfiction when I was younger.”

“Sweetie, you were 35 years old,” Jasmine reminded her. “And besides, this is entertainment news. The fact that you have a crush on Leo Wilson is far more interesting.

Leila was usually a chill person, but she was about to lose her chill right about now.

“Okay!” Nathan broke into the palpable tension that had taken between Leila and Jasmine. “Let’s take a break, shall we?”

Leila fumed as she took off the mic and put it on the table. She stomped over to where her manager, Nico, was. “I told you this was pointless,” Leila told her.

“It’s tradition, babe. All the Carter nominated documentary filmmakers come to this interview. It gives you exposure.” Nico rested her hand on Leila’s arm, gently rubbing it.

“The only thing this is exposing is my weird, teenage crush on Leo Wilson,” Leila replied.

“So you do have a crush on Leo?”

Leila’s eyes widened when she heard that, and she turned to face the person to whom that voice belonged.

Nathan laughed, putting his hands up in surrender. “Don’t worry, that’s totally off the record,” he assured Leila.

Leila did not believe him for a second.

“I have Leo’s phone number. I can get you in touch with him if you’d like?” Nathan offered with a nonchalant shrug.

Something told Leila that this man was more dangerous than his counterpart.

Leila offered Nathan a polite smile and shook her head. “No, that- that’s fine. Thank you, though,” she said with fake sincerity.

Nathan shrugged again and walked away, leaving Leila and Nico to share a look that said, “These people are vultures. We better be careful.” Or at least that’s what that look meant in Leila’s head.

“You know if they find out that you are going to be on the set of 24 Hours next week...”

“Let’s not mention that while we’re around all these cameras and microphones,” Leila said through gritted teeth.

***

“Hey, do you know Leila Shah?”

Leo looked up from his phone to look around. But then he realized Gabe was talking to him.

“The documentary maker?” Leo asked.

Gabe plopped on the chair beside his co-star and friend. “Yeah... Well, she apparently created quite the buzz today.”

Leo narrowed his eyes at the other man. “And I care why?”

“Because it was about you... and me in some ways, I guess,” Gabe added unsurely.

“What are you even talking about?” Leo asked, starting to feel a little annoyed.

“Okay, okay, don’t get your tighty whities in a bunch, man,” Gabe said with a roll of his eyes. “Leila Shah just declared that she writes fanfiction about Eli and Diego,”

“What? No way!” Leo said, cringing a little. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, and she also declared that she has a massive crush on you- well, Eli,” Gabe added.

“That’s just weird,” Leo said, scrunching up his nose.

Gabe just sat there, biting his bottom lip and staring at his friend.

“You looked it up, didn’t you?” Leo asked.

Gabe clenched his teeth together and looked at his co-star guiltily. “I tried to resist, but I couldn’t!” He replied. “You wanna read it?”

“NO!” Leo said, horrified. “That’s even weirder.”

“It’s not!” Gabe insisted. “She really went in for it,” he added, chuckling behind his hand.

“Please tell me it’s not porn.”

“It’s not not porn,” Gabe replied. “Besides, we’ve read worse. Some of them love to get me pregnant in their stories. Others like to run you over with a bulldozer over and over again. Figuratively, of course.”

Leo tilted his head to the side and gave Gabe a “are you serious?” look.

“Come onnnnn... Aren’t you curious? Not even a little bit?” Gabe asked and slowly slipped his phone towards Leo. “You know you want toooo...”

Leo narrowed his eyes before groaning and snatching the phone. “Fine! Give it here!”

Leo read through the story and then looked up at Gabe. “That was... sweet, " he said, surprised by his own words.

“You wanna hear something even better?” Gabe asked, smirking at Leo. “I overheard Matt say that she’s gonna be coming here on Monday to shoot part of her next documentary.”

“You’re kidding...”

“Nope. This is going to be interesting.” Gabe said, rubbing his hands together like a villain from some D-grade movie.